A while ago I was talking with one of my CPs, and she made the comment that she didn't believe I'd ever been a bad writer.*
I assured her that this was definitely not true.
But a picture's worth a thousand words, right??
****************** On Bold Prologues ********************
Part One
The Guild of Blood and Water not as good as blood & swash
Jonah would never forget the affect the night of March 8, 1998 would have on him, or the people it would lead him to love, hate, and kill. This sounds like a query for Nathan Bransford!
Even now, he could see the looks of terror on the faces of the Ensly family. Father, Mother, older sister, younger sister, younger brother, baby paternal aunt twice removed, third cousin to maternal grandmother's step-sister, rabbi of next-door neighbor's uncle's niece's boss's cousin...even the parrot had to be killed. Oh god no! Why the parrot??? Jonah did not pretend, even now, that he had known why they had to kill so many innocent people in one family. He'd better not pretend.
It was all about making Mason Ensly come out. And she had come out with a vengeance, cunning, and ill will.Oh, really? This was all about making her come out? Poor parrot...
guessing circa '98? Twelve years old.
********* On Awesome Character Description ************
Raine laughed and picked up the menu. She had let Tony and Blanche convince her to go to Pulse Beat, the new restaurant, with Chase. She even let them dress her!
She had on huge, baggy, white jeans with large rips all over. Under, she was wearing royal blue tights that matched her T-shirt. To top it off, she had on bright blue Nikes with green laces that glowed in the dark.
Her hair was done in a cresent shaped twist that was held in place by a green band that matched her shoelaces.
Chase was dressed more mildly with black jeans, green shirt and black hightops. He had his black hair slicked back.
Raine thought he looked very cute, but she would never tell him she thought so.
I'm not even sure I can comment on this one.
In my defense, the circa is 1995, and I was nine years old. Yes, ladies and gents, this is an excerpt from my first novel.
OMG! Let me put my hair in a neon green scrunchi before I read more!
I think that's enough interwebz humiliation for one day.
But methinks there will be more of this feature in the future.
*please don't think that I think I'm an awesome writer. But I know I've made improvements since...y'know, these times.
Showing posts with label blast from the past. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blast from the past. Show all posts
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Life with Jeremy
I was looking through my old documents when I ran across a particular gem from my sophomore year of high school. My English teacher gave extra credit for occasional essays, and even more points if you read your essay aloud for the class.
One such topic was "something that is harder than it seems."
What follows is the tongue-in-cheek response I penned about my dearest of dear friends, my cherished big brother. And yes, all the anecdotes are true.
###
In an ideal world, I would be a normal person: average height, average weight, average looks. I would get up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to school, and come home in the afternoon. My evenings would consist of doing my homework, relaxing a bit, and then going to bed. A simple life, one without complexities and stress; a life in which my immune system functioned properly and I got eight hours of sleep every night. My father would be a businessman who always wore a gray suit and carried a briefcase, eating his eggs and bacon in the morning before saying a cheerful goodbye to the family and going off to work. Mother would wear dresses that fall just below the knee with pristine high heels, and would always be vacuuming the house. Our pets would be clean and neat, with no shedding fur or skin problems. The cats wouldn't leave half-eaten animals on the door step and regurgitate their last meal on the welcome mat; the dogs wouldn't bark at the slightest hint of a rustle in the leaves, or paste muddy, wet noses all over your clean white pants. Of course, last but definitely not least, my brother would be a pleasant, enjoyable young man who spoke words of encouragement and wisdom to me, who helped me up when I fell, and was there for me in times of trouble.
Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. We have to take what is thrown at us and manage to the best of our abilities. Our families are dysfunctional and our animals are psychotic. We're always too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, or too something. I would say that life is harder than it looks, but that isn't the point of my paper. So, you say, quit babbling and get to the point.
My brother is two years and two months older than I, to the day. We share similar features such as brown hair, green eyes, and the same dental structure. We are both pianists, both sing, and both enjoy theatre. We watch the same kind of movies, read the same kind of books, and listen to the same kind of music. That is where the similarities end, however, because those of you who know us may not realize that living with my brother is harder than it seems.
Picture this: it's the end of a long, stressful day. You've changed into your pajamas and are settling down to relax in the blessed solitude of your bedroom when suddenly the door to the closet adjoining your room to your brother's swings open. In vaults a hunched over being with a crazed expression, gnarled hands, and a lump on his back. He bounds up to you, cackling maniacally and chomping on your arm. No big deal, however. It's only your brother.
Now, here's another mental image: you are sitting on your bed reading a particularly good book when a hard knock sounds on your bedroom door. A moment later, without being invited, in walks your brother. His hands are behind his back, hiding something. You ask him what he wants, but he ignores you and kneels down next to your bed. Whipping his hands up from behind his back, you see that he is holding two action figures from Star Wars: Episode I: Qui Gonn Jinn and Darth Maul. With a cameo appearance of his left hand as a sandworm, he proceeds to re-enact the famous desert scene from Frank Herbert's Dune when Jessica and Paul are running to find shelter. Once he has finished the scene, he gets up and walks out, leaving me alone once again.
I'll be the first to admit that these are some of the most extreme examples of his peculiarities; unfortunately, he banned me from mentioning the really funny ones in this paper. So now that we've gotten the stories aside, let me continue to explain why exactly living with my brother can be so hard.
It's six o'clock in the morning, and you are sleeping peacefully in your nice warm covers. Suddenly you are rudely awoken by the climax of Holst's Mars, Bringer of War, which is pounding through your wall at decibel levels that should be banned from society. When you yell at your brother through the door to turn down the music, he replies that such fine music can only be listened to at extreme volumes.
Twelve hours later, you have just crawled beneath your covers and turned off your lamp, ready to go to sleep. You close your eyes and begin to breathe slowly and steadily. You are teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. Suddenly the door slams open and the horrific fluorescent light comes on. You yell out terrible threats as you fumble to see who has dared disturb your slumber. It is your brother.
"What do you want?" you scream in rage, rational mind cloudy with sleepiness.
"Summer," he begins, "when was the last time you considered the beautiful irony of the Children's Crusade?" and he launches into one of his famously boring and long history lectures that, number one, I don't care about, and number two, I am exhausted. Yet, does he listen to my ravings and chanting of "get out"? Of course not. He continues with his lecture undaunted. Thankfully, the late-night lectures when I'm almost asleep are pleasantly rare. However, he does always manage to want to discuss the philosophy of a particular short story or poem in his English 102 literature book while I'm in the middle of geometry homework.
Okay, so maybe the facts that he's weird, long-winded, and annoying; sings in falsetto while taking a shower, and the only piano dynamic he knows is fortissimo can be over looked. Sure, everyone has their quirks, right? There is one feature my brother has that drives me to the brink of insanity, however, and that would be his fantastically large and well-groomed ego. Sometimes he'll come into my room for the sole reason to look at himself in my full-length closet mirrors. He'll turn from side to side, then say to me, "Summer, don't you wish that you had my dashing good looks, roguish charm, and rapier wit?" In this circumstance, I merely nod and indulge his fantasy.
Alas, there are not enough hours in the day to tell of my brother's conceit, and frankly I can not do it justice. I do hope, however, that this small glimpse into my life has shown you why exactly it is that living with my brother is harder than it looks.
One such topic was "something that is harder than it seems."
What follows is the tongue-in-cheek response I penned about my dearest of dear friends, my cherished big brother. And yes, all the anecdotes are true.
###
In an ideal world, I would be a normal person: average height, average weight, average looks. I would get up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to school, and come home in the afternoon. My evenings would consist of doing my homework, relaxing a bit, and then going to bed. A simple life, one without complexities and stress; a life in which my immune system functioned properly and I got eight hours of sleep every night. My father would be a businessman who always wore a gray suit and carried a briefcase, eating his eggs and bacon in the morning before saying a cheerful goodbye to the family and going off to work. Mother would wear dresses that fall just below the knee with pristine high heels, and would always be vacuuming the house. Our pets would be clean and neat, with no shedding fur or skin problems. The cats wouldn't leave half-eaten animals on the door step and regurgitate their last meal on the welcome mat; the dogs wouldn't bark at the slightest hint of a rustle in the leaves, or paste muddy, wet noses all over your clean white pants. Of course, last but definitely not least, my brother would be a pleasant, enjoyable young man who spoke words of encouragement and wisdom to me, who helped me up when I fell, and was there for me in times of trouble.
Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. We have to take what is thrown at us and manage to the best of our abilities. Our families are dysfunctional and our animals are psychotic. We're always too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, or too something. I would say that life is harder than it looks, but that isn't the point of my paper. So, you say, quit babbling and get to the point.
My brother is two years and two months older than I, to the day. We share similar features such as brown hair, green eyes, and the same dental structure. We are both pianists, both sing, and both enjoy theatre. We watch the same kind of movies, read the same kind of books, and listen to the same kind of music. That is where the similarities end, however, because those of you who know us may not realize that living with my brother is harder than it seems.
Picture this: it's the end of a long, stressful day. You've changed into your pajamas and are settling down to relax in the blessed solitude of your bedroom when suddenly the door to the closet adjoining your room to your brother's swings open. In vaults a hunched over being with a crazed expression, gnarled hands, and a lump on his back. He bounds up to you, cackling maniacally and chomping on your arm. No big deal, however. It's only your brother.
Now, here's another mental image: you are sitting on your bed reading a particularly good book when a hard knock sounds on your bedroom door. A moment later, without being invited, in walks your brother. His hands are behind his back, hiding something. You ask him what he wants, but he ignores you and kneels down next to your bed. Whipping his hands up from behind his back, you see that he is holding two action figures from Star Wars: Episode I: Qui Gonn Jinn and Darth Maul. With a cameo appearance of his left hand as a sandworm, he proceeds to re-enact the famous desert scene from Frank Herbert's Dune when Jessica and Paul are running to find shelter. Once he has finished the scene, he gets up and walks out, leaving me alone once again.
I'll be the first to admit that these are some of the most extreme examples of his peculiarities; unfortunately, he banned me from mentioning the really funny ones in this paper. So now that we've gotten the stories aside, let me continue to explain why exactly living with my brother can be so hard.
It's six o'clock in the morning, and you are sleeping peacefully in your nice warm covers. Suddenly you are rudely awoken by the climax of Holst's Mars, Bringer of War, which is pounding through your wall at decibel levels that should be banned from society. When you yell at your brother through the door to turn down the music, he replies that such fine music can only be listened to at extreme volumes.
Twelve hours later, you have just crawled beneath your covers and turned off your lamp, ready to go to sleep. You close your eyes and begin to breathe slowly and steadily. You are teetering on the edge of unconsciousness. Suddenly the door slams open and the horrific fluorescent light comes on. You yell out terrible threats as you fumble to see who has dared disturb your slumber. It is your brother.
"What do you want?" you scream in rage, rational mind cloudy with sleepiness.
"Summer," he begins, "when was the last time you considered the beautiful irony of the Children's Crusade?" and he launches into one of his famously boring and long history lectures that, number one, I don't care about, and number two, I am exhausted. Yet, does he listen to my ravings and chanting of "get out"? Of course not. He continues with his lecture undaunted. Thankfully, the late-night lectures when I'm almost asleep are pleasantly rare. However, he does always manage to want to discuss the philosophy of a particular short story or poem in his English 102 literature book while I'm in the middle of geometry homework.
Okay, so maybe the facts that he's weird, long-winded, and annoying; sings in falsetto while taking a shower, and the only piano dynamic he knows is fortissimo can be over looked. Sure, everyone has their quirks, right? There is one feature my brother has that drives me to the brink of insanity, however, and that would be his fantastically large and well-groomed ego. Sometimes he'll come into my room for the sole reason to look at himself in my full-length closet mirrors. He'll turn from side to side, then say to me, "Summer, don't you wish that you had my dashing good looks, roguish charm, and rapier wit?" In this circumstance, I merely nod and indulge his fantasy.
Alas, there are not enough hours in the day to tell of my brother's conceit, and frankly I can not do it justice. I do hope, however, that this small glimpse into my life has shown you why exactly it is that living with my brother is harder than it looks.
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